Knocking on your door
by MeElla
Summary: Sasha never came back. Six months after winning gold in London, Payson is back to hold her end of the deal. A Sasha/Payson one-shot. Please read and review.


Payson studied the piece of paper in her hand, comparing the address to the house she was standing outside. Once she was sure it was the right place, she took a deep breath and walked up to the door. Knocking, first carefully, but then more force behind her hand when nothing happened. The piece of metal was heavy in her pocket.

There were movements behind the door, the lock was turned and then there he was. Just like that. It was almost two years since she saw him last. Since he walked out on the team, walked out on her during the most important time in her life.

The man who opened the door looked exactly the same as he had two years earlier. The blond hair short, the eyes blue and stubble on his cheek. The realization that he was there, standing in front of her, made her heart skip a beat and her breathing to hitch. She then gained control over her body again, refusing it to respond the way it wanted. She couldn't stop the emotions in time though. So many emotions were fighting inside of her that she had a hard time identifying them all. It took her a full minute to box the emotions up and put them away, letting her breath again.

"Payson..." he said, surprise clearly written across his face. "What..."

She took a deep breath. "I..." An other deep breath and she pulled out the medal from her pocket. The all around gold she had promised him a long time ago. Even when she was the angriest she had ever been, she could still see his part in the gold, even though she didn't want to. She handed it to him. "A deal's a deal," she said, turning to leave.

"Payson, come inside, please," he said, opening the door wider and stepping out on the porch.

After hesitating only a short moment she nodded and followed him inside. He showed her to a light living room and told her to sit while he made tea. Left alone she walked around the room, the back wall was covered with bookshelves and she went over to study the books. Lots of classic literature, some newer thrillers. And a few photos. Payson saw herself in one of them. From the competition against the Chinese team, the comeback competition. Her smile was huge, care free. She probably hadn't been happier since. Maybe not even during the Olympics.

"What are you doing in England?" Sasha asked walking through the door, making her jump. Placing two cups of tea on the table, he sat down on the couch.

"I'm doing the Six Months Later interviews," Payson said, sitting down as far away from him as possible on the couch. Her body was still not to be trusted. Every little thing she noticed about him, like how heavy his accent had gotten, made her heart pound.

"I wanted to..." he sighed. "I want to apologize for how I left things."

Payson had waited a long time for those words. Too long. Hearing them she realized they didn't change anything. They didn't change the long days spent alone in the gym. The hours and hours of pain pushed through. The international competitions spent scared to death locked in a hotel room.

"No worries, only the most important time in my life." Payson could barely recognize herself lately. No longer able to remember when she had turned this cold, this ironic and sarcastic. She suspected it had started shortly after he left, a letter in her gym bag as an only goodbye.

"Pay... I'm sorry," he looked down on the gold medal he was still holding.

She wanted to say so many nasty things. To hurt him like he had hurt her. "I probably should go," she said and rose. "Before I say something I'll regret."

"I thought I did the right thing," he said, still sitting on the edge of the sofa. "I thought me moving away would make things easier for you, for all the girls."

"Yeah, it all ended very well. Kaylie in rehab, Emily a mom at 17 and I have no idea where Lauren is, maybe it's Paris this week?" The gym had fallen apart shortly after Sasha left. Payson knew Sasha couldn't be blamed for it all, but that was easier than seeing her own part in it.

Sasha reached out and took her hand, gently pulling her down to sit next to him on the sofa. "You've changed," he said. "You seem..."

"Colder? Harsher? I've heard it before."

"Sad," he said.

The silent grew thick. "Did you know Ms. Beals still hates me?" Payson asked, not looking up. She thought of all the long away meets and camps, only her, five other girls who all competed for the same gold, and Ms. Beals, the most bitter and hateful woman ever imaginable.

Looking up she saw that Sasha had closed his eyes. She was hurting him, like she had hoped. It didn't feel as good as imagined though. He was still holding her hand in between his, making patterns in the palm of her hand. The human contact was the first she had felt in a very long time and it made her want to cry. The electricity she could feel where he touched her skin was almost unbearable. Her heart was pounding again, blood rushing.

"Before you left... I thought... We..."

"Well..." he sighed.

"I'm sorry," Payson said and rose, she hadn't meant to stay and talk to him. She had just wanted to scream at him. Hurt him and then leave. She quickly walked out, hurrying over the street before she could really listen to Sasha's pleading shouts behind her.

Payson took the tube back to the hotel, locked herself in the bathroom and sank to the floor. She didn't know what she had hoped for. What she had hoped the visit would solve. Distancing herself from all this, from gymnastics, from media, would be the best solution. The only solution. She couldn't live like this any more. She had no energy, Nothing left to fight for.

She had thought winning gold in London would make her happy. Would turn her last year into something worth the cause. But it hadn't. She had her Olympic golds, but she had nothing else.

A knock on the door forced her to get up from the floor. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, wiping away a stray tear before pulling the messy hair up in a bun. Knowing who was on the other side made her have to force her body to move, one step at a time, closer to the door and finally opening it. Ms. Beals, anybody's nightmare's embodied waited, arms crossed and an highly unpleasant look on her face.

"Payson, glad to see that you're back, you didn't register your leave earlier today," Ms. Beals said. "You need to check with me before leaving, you know this Payson."

For two years now had Payson followed this woman's every word, every little move. For nothing. All Ms. Beals was doing, was to try to make her quit so that she could get her dream team of mindless gymnastic soldiers. Payson didn't know what she had done wrong in the first place. She guessed the only explanation to Ms. Beals hatred was that she had never been able to control Payson, she couldn't simply kick her off the team. The world would kill her, Payson had been ranked number one far too long, the whole comeback story was too compelling. But you would have thought, Payson stop competing after the olympics and now being 19 years old, would have gotten her away from under Ms Beal's thumb. But this last six months, the post olympic shows and interviews and the travel, had been even worse.

"I..." Payson had no energy, putting together words felt worse than any practice she ever lived through. She wanted to scream at Ms Beals, curse at her, but there were nothing left inside Payson. The air had gone out of her like from a broken balloon. She thought seeing Sasha again would turn everything around. That she would be free. It was laughable really, she realized. That man had only hurt her, how could he ever fix anything when he was too much of a coward and a quitter and... and an idiot! She didn't know many enough insulting adjectives to describe him properly. The tears were pressing behind her eyes again. "I'm sorry Ms. Beals."

"The interview that was supposed to take place tonight is moved to tomorrow."

Payson nodded.

"So we leave the hotel tomorrow at 9 am."

"Okay," Payson whispered and closed the door behind Ms. Beals. Feeling absolutely drained Payson laid down on the soft hotel bed. She had her own hotel room. Like always. It was Ms. Beals way to isolate her. To freeze her out and turn the rest of the team against _the golden girl_ who got the special treatment.

Before she had time to even close her eyes there were an other knock on the door. Groaning silently she ignored it. Ms Beals wouldn't bother waiting for an answer anyway. As the knocking continued Payson thought that maybe it was an old team mate instead. They would have to wait. It was perfectly believable that she had fallen asleep since Beals had stepped out, or maybe not, but Payson didn't care any more.

The knocking finally stopped and Payson relaxed, closing her eyes. The door opened slowly and she resisted the urge to sigh. She waited for Ms. Beals to start talking, but nothing came. Finally she opened her eyes. Sasha was standing in the door way, watching her. Slowly Payson sat up, leaning against the wall. Even though it was days since her last practice, a short run through the area of the hotel, her body was aching.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Perfect," she said. "Come in."

Sasha closed the door behind him, looking around the room. "No roommate? You've taken a step up in the world," he smiled.

"I haven't had a roommate since the rest of the Rock girl fell of the face of the earth. It's Beals way of trying to freeze me out."

He shook his head and sat down on the bed. "That woman still gives me chills," he said quietly. The silence grew and she could see how he was studying her. "You look different."

"I've stopped training, I've gained weight."

"You haven't gained weight," he and shook his head.

"Compared to the olympics, I have." Having grown an inch or two, lost muscles and gained curves she now hated her body. The control she had once been so proud over, being able to control every muscle, every emotion, in her body, was now gone. Just sitting close to him on a bed caused her heart to flip out, like she had been doing conditioning for hours.

"You were too thin at the Olympics."

"So you watched it?" she asked, surprising herself when she held her breath, waiting for an answer that shouldn't mean this much to her.

"Of course I watched you. I watched every step, every apparatus, every medal." You, not it. She tried not to dwell on if he meant it as plural or singular you.

"Were you there?"

He nodded.

She looked at him. The most important man in her life. One of many to have abandoned her. The only person who has hurt her hard enough to leave a permanent scar on her heart.

"How could you just leave?" she asked before being able to stop herself. She couldn't look at him, instead she focused on a birthmark on her thigh, fighting tears. "What did I do to make you leave? I thought... I did my best... Was I not... Was I not good enough?"

"Payson," he said, moving closer and taking her hand. "You did nothing wrong. I wanted to protect you girls. I failed you all. I thought that if I left, Ms. Beals would go easy on you, that somebody would look after you. I just wanted what was best for you... God, you were barely 17..."

"I've been so... angry... for so long," she said. "In the beginning I was sad and disappointed... until my energy ran out. It's easier to be angry, did you know that?"

"I do know that," he said.

"Was it my fault? Did you leave because I kissed you? Because I couldn't keep that crush a secret?"

He smiled. "Payson, you were not the reason why I left. You were the reason why I came and why I stayed as long as I did. When I had failed you all. It was only you who kept me there. But in the end, I didn't trust myself around you. God you're so young." He absentmindedly played with a stray of her hair that had fallen down from the hair tie.

"I'm almost 20," Payson breathed.

"And I'm soon going to be 30," he said. He studied her for only a moment. "I need to leave," he got up.

"Yeah, that's the solution to everything," Payson said, ignoring the fact that she had been the one running away this morning.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking her in the eyes as he backed away from her, moving toward the door.

Payson tried to force herself not to cry as she was about to watch the man who meant the world to her, walk out on her once again. This time it would be for good. She wouldn't come looking for him again. If he left now her world would crumble once again, but this time she didn't have gymnastics there to pick up the pieces. This was the last interview. Gymnastics was over, leaving her life feeling empty and meaningless. If he walked out now, she wouldn't recover, she knew that.

"Please, don't go," she cried.

Now she was really hurting him, she could see that, see the pain in his eyes. He had one hand on the door knob.

"Please, I can't do this," she sobbed.

He walked over to the bed, framing her face with his hands. His thumbs wiped away the tears.

"Don't cry," he whispered. He moved his hands through her long hair that was escaping the hair tie. His face was now very close to hers. She took a shaky breath, closed the distance and kissed him. He hesitated at first, but then he was kissing her back. She leaned back on the bed, pulling Sasha down with her. His hands were everywhere on her body, leaving a trail of tingling as he moved them. She tried to pull him even closer.

"This is not a good idea," Sasha breathed after breaking the kiss. "You're still so young." His hands were around her face again. She couldn't stop her hands from mirroring his. His stubble rough under her fingertips. His blue eyes hypnotizing. Letting her finger trail his face she couldn't break eye contact. "I can't..."

The image of him pushing her away as she kissed him after performing her floor routine the first time comes crashing back. And the pain with it. More tears escapes her eyes.

"I don't care about age," her words a broken whisper.

"I can't justify this even to myself," Sasha whispered back, still holding her face. "You're so beautiful, so amazingly talented in everything you do... You deserve so much more than I could ever give you."

Out of all the important words leaving his mouth only one matters to Payson. "Beautiful?" she asks, an other tear falling down her cheek. "You think I'm beautiful?"

"Oh Payson," he chuckled, but there was no humor in his voice. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Nobody has called her beautiful before. Her routines being beautiful, sure she has heard that before. But her? She had to smile a little.

"God what would people say? What would your parents say?"

"I'm 19," she repeated. "I'm a legal adult in like every country in the world. Except in the countries where the men owns the women, but even there, my age wouldn't matter."

He smiles for a fraction of a second. "I've thought about you every day since I left," he whispered. "I've picked up the phone so many times, dialing your number. I've jumped planes and flown across the ocean three times before loosing my nerves on JFK. I stood outside your room in the Olympic village."

"I stood outside your empty house in Romania," she whispered.

"What did you do in Romania?" he asked.

"I wanted to beg you to come back, but you weren't there... I almost missed the competition in Hungary." She had no control over the tears that was still falling down her cheeks. "That's when I stopped hoping," she whispered. "I stopped hoping to ever see you again. I stopped looking for you in the crowd." She let his face go, her arms falling down to her side.

"You won the all around in that competition," he whispered, confusion written on his face.

"I decided that emotions really are useless, so I pushed them away. It's easier to deal with life if you can't feel emotions any more."

A tear now escaped his watery eyes. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

"No worries," her emotions were slipping away. The pain, anger and frustration were slowly melting, disappearing with the tears. It left her body feeling empty, such a welcoming feeling. She was so tired.

"Payson," his hands were stroking her face, his eyes never leaving hers. "Don't shut me out Payson," he begged.

"I'm being more honest than I've ever been in my life." It sounded like somebody else's voice. "I don't know if it's helping though..." She couldn't handle an other rejection, she thought, trying to push the emotions back to where they came from.

"It is," he kissed her, a soft kiss barely touching her lips. "It is. I love you Payson. I've been in love with you since you were 16 and that's why this is so... confusing."

"I've been in love with you since I was 16," Payson whispered back. "Please don't leave me," her voice broke.

"I wont," he kissed her again, on the lips, on her forehead, on the tears still making trails down her cheek. "God Payson, I'll never leave you again."

Payson lifted her arms and hugged him, pulling him as close as she could. "Good, because I don't want to feel like that ever again." Their tears mixed together as they kissed again.

"How can I take your pain away?" he asked between kisses.

"You're doing it," Payson whispered back truthfully. He took her pain away. The scars were still there, but maybe they would fade with time.

"I love you Payson, more than life itself."

Yeah, the scars would fade.


End file.
